More Is Better?
Efforts to increase voter turnout may encourage fraud.
URL: opinionjournal.com
Thursday, September 19, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
The latest vote-counting fiasco, in Florida's Democratic primary between Janet Reno and Bill McBride, is a wake-up call for all states now updating their voting systems. Complicated and comprehensive changes run the risk of overwhelming poll workers and leading to the very problems the reforms are supposed to correct. That's what happened last week in Florida--poll workers weren't equipped to handle the changes. And the same problem is likely to crop up in California and Colorado if initiatives pass this November that would allow new voters to register on Election Day.
Initiative proponents are worried more about low voter turnout than fraud. Registration deadlines of 15 days before Election Day in California and 30 days in Colorado, they argue, prevent some people from voting. They want to allow anyone to show up at the polls, present a driver's license or some other document with his name and address on it, register on the spot and vote.
New voters are a good thing, but not if they come at the expense of ballot integrity and smoothly run polling places. "I personally have no confidence in the accuracy of the [primary] numbers," says Jim Kane, editor of Florida Voter magazine, of last week's results. "People are saying, 'What's the use? There is chaos and confusion. You have to wait in long lines.' "
"Elections are in danger of collapsing under the weight of their own complexity," warns Conny McCormack, the voter registrar of Los Angeles County. Mischelle Townsend, the Riverside County registrar, says California's Proposition 52 would remove safeguards against electoral fraud because it would not require "provisional ballots" for those who register on Election Day. Currently, people whose eligibility is in dispute have their ballots separated and verified later. If the initiative passes, voters who register on Election Day will have their ballots mixed in with everyone else's.
Ms. Townsend warns that even if investigators are able to prove fraud on Election Day, "there is no way to right the wrong." It's impossible to pick out a fraudulent anonymous ballot. An aide to Secretary of State Bill Jones says under Proposition 52, busloads of people could "move into" a close, targeted district for a day, vote and leave town without technically breaking the law.
A huge state like California would also have serious administrative problems with same-day registration. Proposition 52 sponsor Rob McKay, the heir to the Taco Bell fast-food fortune, claims that six states have Election Day registration now and enjoy above-average voter turnouts. But Minnesota's Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer is tired of hearing her state's "same day" registration extolled. She compares it to holding a party and not knowing how much food to buy because no one sent in a RSVP. Some precincts run out of ballots, while others are overstocked. "We have long lines because of same-day," she says. "People get frustrated and leave."
The states that have tried same-day registration are mostly small, with stable populations and long traditions of good government. Even so, problems crop up. In 1986, Oregon voters overwhelmingly scrapped the idea after a cult that wanted to take over a town government tried to register hundreds of supporters on Election Day. In 2000, a New York socialite working for Al Gore scandalized Wisconsin when a TV camera caught her bribing street vagrants with packs of cigarettes if they went to the polls. She pleaded guilty to fraud. At Marquette University in Milwaukee 174 students boasted that they voted more than once. They quickly changed their story when prosecutors pointed out voting twice was a crime. Also that year, the Postal Service returned at least 3,500 Election Day registration confirmations as undeliverable in Wisconsin--meaning that thousands of people registered to vote and likely cast ballots with the wrong address on Election Day. Al Gore won Wisconsin by 5,700 votes.
In California, Proposition 52 would toughen penalties for ballot fraud. But skittish district attorneys almost never go after voter fraud cases because of their clear partisan overtones. It's better to have safeguards in place making it harder to commit fraud in the first place. Even some supporters of Election Day registration in smaller states quail when asked about its use in America's most populous state. Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, says the risk of fraud in California is too great. "It's not beyond the imagination that one party or another will register aliens on the last day," he said. "And there's no protection against that except criminal penalties, which have not been effective."
Indeed, California's Legislature seems determined to thwart the ability of registrars to police the polls. Unlike, say, airport security clerks, poll workers can't ask registered voters for a photo ID. Proposition 52 would require a person who registered to vote on Election Day to prove his identity with some form of ID, most likely a driver's license. But that's little help in combating fraud. Not all driver's license holders are citizens. The law already allows legal residents to get licenses, even though they're not entitled to vote, and last month the state Legislature passed a bill that would allow many illegal aliens to get a California driver's license. (Gov. Gray Davis hasn't signed the bill yet.)
We've been down this road before. Motor voter laws allow people to register to vote at the department of motor vehicles. Liberal absentee voter laws let people cast ballots while on vacation or from remote locations. And some states allow for early voting--casting a ballot before Election Day. All of these provisions have failed to increase voter turnout. It's about time that someone step forward and admit that the root cause of low turnout isn't restrictive voting laws, but voter apathy. People are fed up with mediocre candidates, gerrymandered districts and uncompetitive elections.
Sponsors of the Election Day registration idea are unmoved. They still believe voter turnout can be boosted by making the process still easier. The notion is a quaint echo of 1960s liberal idealism. Mr. McKay says his measure is nonpartisan but cheerily admits that he "helps finance numerous left-wing causes," including a San Francisco measure to mandate a "living wage." He recalls how a formative meeting with Deidre English, the former editor of Mother Jones magazine, got him interested in politics. He now co-chairs the board that funds the left-wing magazine.
His financial clout appears to have scared off major donors to the opposition. Last week's Field Poll shows Proposition 52 trailing by 42% to 36%. But it's gaining ground; in August it was behind 54% to 37%. Democrats, who were evenly split on the idea, now favor it 45% to 32% as unions start to mobilize their members on its behalf.
The Colorado initiative, Amendment 30, is doing better at the polls, with a 16-point lead last month. Opponents, who include Republican former senator Bill Armstrong, lack significant financial backing. The initiative is clearly beatable, but as in the case of California opponents are scared off by its millionaire sponsor, Jared Polis. A 27-year-old Internet millionaire, Mr. Polis spent $1.3 million of his own money in 2000 to oust a Republican from an unpaid seat on the Colorado State Board of Education. As of July, he had spent another $395,000 to promote Amendment 30. Besides Mr. Polis, only five other individuals had given a combined $100 to his effort.
Like the politicians who refused to back Ron Unz's successful 1998 initiative abolishing bilingual education in California for fear of being labeled intolerant, few donors in either state appear willing to challenge measures touting an expansion of the right to vote despite the long-term damage they could cause.
The initiative has certainly created some interesting political cleavages. In the past, Gov. Davis has consistently opposed same-day registration. "His view is that voters who go to the polls ought to have the minimum amount of information about what they are voting on," explains Davis aide Garry South.
On the other hand, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, a liberal Republican, co-authored an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he wrote: "There are two sides to this debate--those who value inclusion and expanded democracy and those who want to limit the number of people who are allowed to vote."
If Election Day registration passes, no doubt the movement will spread to other states and perhaps even to Congress. The nation will have learned nothing from either the 2000 or 2002 Florida fiascoes, and therefore will be condemned to repeat them. |
